


your home and mine

by harajukucrepes



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Anime/Manga Fusion, Assisted Suicide, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Character Death, Demon Slayer / Kimetsu no yaiba crossover, M/M, Since this is kny cross over please just expect blood and people dying and swords and whatnot, and also someone gets turned into a demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27766306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harajukucrepes/pseuds/harajukucrepes
Summary: It’s been a while, he said to the slayer that had come to fetch his head, someone who had on his face an aged version of the love of his life.or,demon slayer au where one of yujae is a demon. guess who.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21
Collections: Sakura Mochi - a yujae centered ficfest





	your home and mine

**Author's Note:**

> \- original prompt as below: 
> 
> **yuta is a demon slayer. he is famous for being merciless, solid and for his hatred for demon-kind. one day, he encounters a demon that seems familiar, one who doesn't eat humans despite being a demon. when yuta tries to kill him, he recalls memories from his childhood. he remembers that the demon used to be his best friend and first love, jaehyun. for the first time in his life, yuta cannot bring himself to kill a demon.**
> 
> \- apologies to the original prompter because i switched things up a little from the prompt and now it doesn't look exactly like that so hope this is still ok!!  
> \- because this is a demon slayer crossover/au, some knowledge of the manga/anime context would be required. i tried to minimise the references unless required, but it would be confusing towards the end so hope this is not too tough  
> \- this is, arguably, a happy ending  
> \- some references to the Bakumatsu and the ~sword politics~ around the Meiji era are being used, so it's safe to assume that this takes place some time after Meiji Restoration era takes place, but otherwise the historical contexts are flimsy and irrelevant at best  
> \- Jaehyun here is named Yuno (I'm hoping that the textual context gives enough) because it's easier to appropriate his real name into a Japanese-sounding name
> 
> \- thank you so much for clicking in and kindly heed the warnings ;~; all forms of feedbacks are welcomed!  
> \- hope you enjoyed this, and remember to WORK IT!

*

your home and mine

*

  
  
  
  
  


The nightmare began with a child running to the chief’s hut with blood dripping from his messily wrapped stump, echoes of desperate screams coated the village in dread and despondence. 

_The demon is here!_ he cried, kneeling down once he reached the chief as his body gave away to fear, _and he killed my father!_

 _The demon!! is here!_ the panicked chief’s wife repeated loudly, hugging her son tight, _and it will kill us all!_

The child dropped to the ground soon after with blood still spilling from his body and thus the stench of innocent blood marked the beginning of the long darkness, the demon in the wild shrouding the village with absolute terror. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


The crow reached the slayer just as the sun started peeking through the clouds, croaking about the news of a demon in a village 3 miles from where he was at: a vile creature who feasted on those with young children to consume their flesh and to watch the formation of grief on the children’s face as he rapidly turned them into orphans. 

_Three fathers from the village had been eaten,_ the crow said, _and five mothers, one of them was still weaning a babe._

And how many children, the slayer asked. 

The crow spread his wings in preparation for his flight, then croaked again. 

_None_ — _the demon preferred their tears, not their flesh._

What an abomination, the slayer remarked, gripping at his sword and swearing his usual oath, only to have the crow fly above him for words of caution. 

_Watch your back_ , the crow’s words of warning hovering above, _I’m hearing words that you might have a companion._

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


The girl in the cottage just came of age a few days ago, but there would be no one to watch her marry the boy from the nearby village she was betrothed to. Her hands covered with blood clotted with dirt from her parents’ grave, her face layered with salt from her dried tears and her ears deafened by the wails of her distressed siblings, one crying for her mother’s milk and the other longing for his father’s embrace. 

_The village has abandoned us_ , the girl muttered brokenly, because the village had put them on the altar so that the demon would hunt for them to finish its job. 

_Please understand, Aki-chan_ , the chief had begged, _the demon knows the smell of your blood._

And that was how the long moonless nights continued to rage on, by feeding some to the demon for the safety of the bigger few, spilling the blood that had already been spilled and stopping the trail of tears at the place where they had begun to flow. The village had abandoned them in order to protect themselves. 

_Hush, my little sister_ , the girl said when she felt a familiar foreboding presence approach, _and be quiet, my little brother._

The heavy steps would sure make a dent in the garden, she was thinking. Mother would be so angry, she knew right away, because she was going to grow some potatoes to go with the chicken for the summer festival. Father would be so disappointed, she mused as well, because the family hadn’t eaten meat since the new year and it would make their preparations go to waste if the fresh produce were going to be ruined. 

Then the girl saw it, two small eyeballs with the colour of fire sparkling in the dark watching her clinging to her siblings for dear life with the grotesquely white teeth sharpening their bites and the girl found her tears drying up in reluctant acceptance of the inevitable fate that awaited her. 

_Mother, father_ , she prayed, closing her siblings’ eyes, _we will come to you soon._

Above her, a shadow lurked in anxious anticipation. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


The slayer was still a boy back then when he took up his sword for the first time, the blade carrying the weight of the burden of all the lives of both the innocent and the malicious, setting him firmly to the ground. 

_Heavy, isn’t it?_ asked the old lady from her shack in the outskirts of Edogawa after the swordsmith in the Hyottoko mask departed. _That is an infinite amount of lives you just took up._

The phantom of Akari-sensei’s parting words took him back to the snowy sunless day the winter prior when he was on his bloody knees, begging for her to take him in for just a while. Please, _sensei_ , he had pleaded, I need to be able to fight. 

She was unrelenting even in the face of a pubescent sort of predicament, clearly unmoved by what she deemed was some kind of a shallow plight. _I have seen so many of them like you right now, inflamed by a passion that is but temporal in nature,_ came her argument, stoic but carefully composed and sharper than a million knives. _You’re driven by rage, powered by resentment, carried by obsession._

It was then that he told her that he had nothing of that sort—you don’t lose anything you never had, he had explained, standing by the door after a week of pleading. 

I never had rage, _sensei_ , and I never had resentment nor obsession. 

And that was how Akari-sensei started to listen. 

I only ever had sorrow, he finally said, and that’s why I’ll take it. 

_And you’re certain._

I’ll take all of it, he swore, I’ll take the burden of all the lives who would become the weight of my sword. 

And so the boy was laid to rest on the day the slayer was born amidst blood and snow and amidst darkness and sorrow, guided by the depth of a retired slayer’s residual rage and fusing an old woman’s cynicism with a young man’s desolation to create a demon slayer that would come to be known and feared for his blinding speed, breathless agility and most of all: 

benevolent mercy in all the swings of his sword, killing with just a quick, painless stroke. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


The village had its darkness seared not by the morning sun but by a news delivered by a boy without a front tooth, telling the chief that the orphan-making demon had died, at long last. 

_There’s blood all over the cottage_ , he said as the villagers sounded a chorus of relief, _but they are dried, all dried!_

 _But the slayer has not arrived, has he?_ the chief said and the murmurs turned grim. 

_So who had killed the demon_ , asked Granny Chiyo, whose son had died in the war and her daughter-in-law was lost to fever and there would be no one but herself left to be killed to doom her five grandchildren to another layer of sorrow. 

_Is it one of our young men?_

_But it can’t be, none of us left our homes._

It was then that the boy who delivered the message burst into tears, because—

 _There’s another demon,_ he wailed. _Another one!_

This time, the gasps were silent. 

_There are two demons in our village._

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


The dimpled boy said that his name was Yuno, but his mother called him Jaehyun. 

_They are both my names,_ he said with eyes shining like prayer beads, _because they are one and the same._

They used to be just that, two boys by the lake foreign to the city they were in, one hiding his speech while the other hiding his name as they slowly built a home from their shared yearning for places some distance away. _Osaka sounds like a wonderful place,_ Yuno used to say, _I can already feel the hustling and bustling just from the way you described it and I wish we could both go back to the place you used to call home._

But it was Kyoto I longed for, he said to him. Kyoto and her serene forest of bamboos, Kyoto and her spiritual relics of his people’s history, and Kyoto and her subdued colours of royalty—I’m sorry, Yuno-kun, you must have been pining for Joseon, he would later say, because Yuno had this way of watching him talk about places he had adored like he was looking at a sun that wouldn’t burn his eyes. 

_It’s alright,_ Yuno told him, holding his hand tight, _someday we’ll see the stars from there, the beautiful city that holds your pure heart._

He had loved that about him, beecause more than his softly glittering eyes and his deep dimpled smiles and his flattering gazes and his voice that reminded him of lullabies, he had loved his acceptance for everything he had treasured 

_Because your home is mine_ , Yuno would say, _and so one day when you’re ready, Yuta-kun, my home will be yours._

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


_The Ubuyashiki Clan made the Demon Slayer Corps out of love,_ the crow said, _so you don’t have to do this. Oyakata-sama would be happy to reassign another slayer for this, so it’s over for you. Two demons have fought each other and one of them died. The one that died was the one who ate the villagers. The one that survived was the strangely weaker one but you don’t have to fight him._

 _Your job is done_ , the crow said, _I’m taking you to a wisteria manor._

Yes, the slayer said, I know. But this one that remains is mine to fight. 

The crow perched on his shoulder, the magic in its body halting the slayer’s rush and pausing his steps, for the Ubuyashiki crows were a being of living history, wise beyond their duties. 

_I’ve seen many of them who were just like you_ , its solemn voice uttered, no doubt a projection of the leader himself. _I’ve seen them charge into an overdue confrontation and then to a fate worse than death._

The slayer knew that the words meant well, but some things were beyond well-sounding words. 

_I trust that you know who you will be facing_ , the crow continued, slowly revealing a reluctant blessing. 

In the back of the slayer’s head, Akari-sensei’s voice chimed in, reeking of resounding disappointment. 

_You lied to me_ , the voice said bitterly, _you said you didn’t have anything else to lose._

The slayer took out his sword and sliced the air in front of him. 

And I told the truth, because it was never mine to lose, he answered—to both Akari-sensei, the crow, and the revered Ubuyashiki leader. 

But now I will have, he said, taking a step back on the journey to his doom, because I’ll be telling him what I should have said years ago. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


The boy who lived in a shack next to the river was so far away from the nearest inhabited house that he had gotten used to never hearing much hearsay from the village, and that was why he said to the demon a few days ago, _you’re safe here_. 

Are you not afraid of me, the demon had asked. My fangs are so potent that they could tear your flesh and make holes in your ones, my nails are so sharp that a hand of mine could snap your neck in half, my legs are so strong that your guts would explode with just one kick—are you really not afraid of me and my ghoulish eyes. 

The boy lit the wood in the fire so that it would be bright enough to see the demon’s eyes and gave him a small smile before establishing that his threats were but an empty vessel; that he was skinny and scrawny and kind-looking, his fangs were chipped and his nails were broken and his hands were frail and his legs were wobbly, and if he hadn’t eaten the demon that was attacking the village a few nights ago, he would been wasted away from hunger. 

_You’ve never eaten a human before,_ Shotaro said. _We have all heard about them you know, how they look like, how they smell like, what they eat—and sir, you don’t look like that._

The demon grinned, eyes reverting to its original beady brown. 

_Besides, this is my home,_ Shotaro declared. _I don’t mind dying here._

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


The chief and his fellow villagers knelt in front of the slayer when he arrived, begging for forgiveness for he had no intention to hide a demon in his vicinity. 

_I swear, my good sir—we all do_ , they all echoed each other, _we didn’t intend this, we didn’t want this, look at all the fresh graves we had dug in the previous days!_

And so the slayer, having understood that the village had unknowingly let slip another demon’s existence when they abandoned an orphan teenage girl and her two very young siblings, said to the crow and the chief, please let me handle this. 

The crow croaked again, but this time, it bore the tone of finality. 

_Oyakata-sama trusts that you know what to do._

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


_Do you have a name, sir,_ Shotaro asked, wrapping some buns in a strip cloth. 

No, I don’t, answered the demon. Names are for humans. 

_You’re wrong_ , Shotaro said. _Everything has a name. Every human has one, every animal has one, every tree has one, every leaf has one, the sky has one, the moon has one, the river has one, my shack has one._

_Everything, sir, everything good in this world has a name._

You said every human—and I’m not one. 

_But you are_ , Shotaro insisted. _Only a human could hold a heart as good as yours._

The demon took the buns wrapped in the strip cloth and started walking, the vibrations of his voice softly humming in their air just loud enough to give away his name to the wind. 

Someone I loved used to call me Yuno, the voice said. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


It was a saying that got passed down from one generation to another; that a ghost was born when the body died before the soul, a demon was born when the soul died before the body and that was exactly how Yuno’s soul died in the dark under the bright full moon, the teeth of the sword in the former samurai’s grip still coated with his blood after drinking what it had been deprived of since the end of the Edo period. 

He had wanted to be you, Yuta had cried, he longed to live in the ghosts of your glory— _how could you._

But the old samurai, whose ould was lost to the cruelty of his past, tore his remaining sanity apart and laughed to tear the air like a thunder. _He didn’t want to be me,_ he had roared _, because if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have stolen the sword from his father and gave it to me—_

He didn’t steal, Yuta cried louder. He told you, it was a gift, it was not stolen. 

_But he still stole it,_ the old samurai said, _or his family did._

In his arms, Yuta saw the light dimming in Yuno’s eyes and whispered desperately. You’re a fighter, he said, drowning the pained whimpering, Yuno-kun, you’re a strong person, you’re a kind person, and we still haven’t seen the stars from the place I call my home. 

_He once said he wanted to be like Saitou Hajime,_ Yuta heard as the mad old samurai raved on—

Then a scream broke the still night and blood started raining on them. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


It had felt like hell at that time, because it was such a lonely thing to be doing, clawing his way up from the depths of the snow he was being buried in with his stomach eating him from his inside and with the whiteness around him coating him with endless misery. It even looked like hell, if hell was a plain of leafless trees and deafening voids and abandoned huts and abject silence. There was absolute nothingness in the way he supposed he was to die then, doomed to his end craving for raw flesh and thirsting for blood. 

But a yearning voice rang in his head like a chime _, Yuno-kun,_ it had said, _please_ _don’t die_. 

Who was that, he wondered. Who are you. What are you. Why are you leaving me here to die. 

_Yuno-kun, I’m sorry_. 

Who are you. 

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I tried my best, I—Jaehyun-kun, please—_

It was a name that sounded like a salvation _,_ because it sent him a dying deer to feed his hungry body, dragged him to the place of sunlights and grasses and left him with nothing else but a singular need to see the face whom that voice had belonged to. 

Now he was hearing it again, in a village in the middle of nowhere, after the night he ate a fellow demon for the first time ever, and feeling the whiteness shroud him again except this time, he would have a company. 

_It’s been a while,_ he said to the slayer that had come to fetch his head, someone who had on his face an aged version of the love of his life. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Edogawa was a lot further away from Kyoto than he had expected, but still words of a strange creature with aura of a demon that only ever asked for decayed livestock reached Akari-sensei. 

_The demon corps have been preoccupied with a series of minions by a former lower kizuki currently terrorising the south of Yokohama_ , Akari-sensei’s old crow reported, _and that was how the harmless little demon was left to roam free._

It was all that she needed, for she was hard of hearing but sharp of intuition, and missed no details about the creation of a human-avoiding demon coinciding with the arrival of a purposeless wanderer of a wounded boy seeking for her tutelage. She was blind in one eye and foggy in another, but saw with her heart that the boy that she took in fought like his sword was blunt by regret and his resolve was clouded with grief. 

_I have seen many of your kind,_ she said many times over, _and there will be many more to come._

But how many of them would have had blood in their hands before they even took up the sword. 

_All you can do is seek for the one you had doomed—_

How many of them had loved like he did. 

_—and end the suffering there and then._

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Yuno had thought of at least ten different ways for him to meet Yuta again and the questions he would ask: why did you bury me under a pile of snow; why did you not aim directly at the heart and how could have not known that you could only kill a demon by taking its head off; why did you beg for that man in the hat for a cure that turned me into this disgusting form; why did you not run when the old samurai and his wretched hand holding the sword was aiming at you; why did we acquaint ourselves with a stranger with a dark past. 

Why did we not heed into your mother’s advice, that a samurai’s glory has long gone and their irrelevance festered their delusion; why did we give a sword to a madman; and finally, why did you never kill me properly. 

But he was glad that they met, for Yuta had grown into a man that looked exactly how he had envisioned for so long and perhaps for this purpose alone, it was worth extending his sorry existence. 

I once loved a boy with a face like yours, Yuno said to him, with eyes as big as yours and voice also as lovely as yours. 

Yuta drew his sword and Yuno took a deep breath, then untie the clothed package that Shotaro had given him 

Please, sir, allow me to eat some buns. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


It was a saying that got passed down from one generation to another; that a ghost was born when the body died before the soul, a demon was born when the soul died before the body and finally, a slayer was born when both the body and soul died and then reborn from the ashes and that was exactly how Yuta died that day when he was indoctrinated into the Demon Slayer Corps amidst the scent of lavender and the illusion of peace just outside the Ubuyashiki Manor. 

We both died that day, he had thought, gripping his sword in his tight fist, and we will die again _—together._

This time, he promised, we will see the stars from a place where I call my home. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Yuno had met many kind people along his travels as he roamed quietly on his way to Kyoto, but not all of them skillful enough to make delicious vegetable buns. 

Did you know, sir, that the buns they sell at a little tiny shop next to the Togetsu-kyo in Arashiyama is made by a sweet old lady who was called Nana-baachan because she had seven children even though only two survived to adulthood? Did you also know that the best kitsune udon in Kyoto is actually just right opposite the palace? Did you know that they have opened a western ice-cream shop in front of the Philosopher’s Walk? 

I once loved a boy who would really like to know all of these little things I just said. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


It was me, Yuta had said to Yuno’s mother. It was me who killed him. 

I was the one who had indulged in his interests in the samurais; I was the one who had told him where to get a sword; I was the one who had told him about the old homeless man who used to kill for the sake of the country; and I had been the one who begged the man in black to revive him. 

It was me, Yuta confessed. I made him into a monster and then I killed him. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Yuno tried offering Yuta the last bite of the bun that Shotaro had made for him. Come on, he said, have this one. Shotaro is a good honourable boy. He lives alone in a shack next to the river and pays attention to only making an honest living and did you know that he was the one who told me about the demon who was going to attack the orphan girl with two little siblings? 

That poor girl, Yuno sighed, she will continue to have nightmares long after this is over. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Demons weren’t supposed to be beautiful but when the moon finally rose up again in the sky after some few days of darkness, Yuta began to remember how beautiful Yuno was as a boy with too much curiosity and too little discretion, gazing wondrously at things that Yuta had loved. 

If only there was a way to write you a letter, Yuta was thinking, if there was a way to ask if you were in pain, if you were hungry, if you had needed anything. If there was a way to take you back to your mother so that we could tell her that we were sorry, we shouldn’t have gone into the lion’s den, we should have seen the dangers of a fallen warrior whose sword was forced away from him. 

If there was a way to turn back time so that we could go back to being Yuno and Yuta, just two boys foreign to the city they were in. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Shotaro didn’t need a story to sleep, but he would tell anyway. 

There was once a child with a friend and they were both bewitched by the times of glorious past; he had his love for the hymn of Kyoto’s chime while his friend was beguiled by the charms of the samurais and their swords. They sought out stories from books and paintings and words of mouth, they dreamt about the valours of the heroes they had admired, and they swore to each other that they would one day travel to Kyoto together. 

But their love was brought to a halt when they met an old homeless man on the streets who had once fought in a war _—_ how do you think the two friends reacted to a relic of the past they were so fond of? 

Like a curious child, Shotaro pressed. _Tell me more, sir, tell me everything._

They cared for him _,_ obviously, they did. They made him tell his stories about the war: about the daimyos and the battles and the Bakumatsu banners and the bullets that pierced through warriors, living and fallen or the broken swords and spliced helmets. The two friends were delighted _—_ so, so very delighted. What do you think happened next? 

Shotaro kept quiet for a while, as though he was trying to deny himself the courtesy of the ending of the story a demon was telling him. He must have known that it wouldn’t be a bright one, the demon thought, for a demon could only tell stories of humans of a past existence and surely the encounter between two rosy boys and a washed up fighter was one of those. 

He asked anyway. _So, what happened._

Well, the demon said, there’s a reason you don’t take away a warrior’s sword. 

As Shotaro’s face slowly melted into the shadows that casted the room, flashes of the memories of the human he used to be began a fresh wave of haunting: the dread of watching his family sword drip in a random stranger’s blood after the old samurai took it; the dizzying taste of death when the cold grip of the blade slashing across his chest; the wail of his friend’s grief and desperation; the faint scent of hope when his friend found the way to bring him back and finally _—_

You see, Shotaro-chan, a sword on the wall is nothing but a piece of useless decorative steel but put it in the hands of the hungry man and it becomes a murder weapon.

 _—_ the distorted colour of white as his friend slowly vanished from his sight, the only person in the world he had ever loved. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Yuta waited for the demon to finish his food and drinking in the realisation that despite the years of starvation having left him with hardly anything but skin and bones, he still managed to muster a brilliant smile that was the exact one that had charmed him years ago, the very same one that had easily bewitched into believing in his views and visions. 

It was the same dimpled smile that had cheerfully told him that he wanted nothing more than to visit his beloved Kyoto, to have their hands linked together as they watch cherry blossom fall into the river, to have their eyes glued at the sky as the festivals drums beat around them, to have their hearts beat together as they swear their devotion to each other after having found a home where they could watch the stars from. 

It was a beautiful smile _—_ so beautiful that remembering it caused tears to start welling in his eyes and he almost missed the demon discarding the warm cloth that used to wrap the buns he was eating before charging straight at him. 

His hand then made contact with the demon’s bony one but a lapse of judgement had his guts trapped in the demon’s hold, the sudden jarring pain shocked his body into spitting blood from his mouth and he had to plead with his eyes for just a few last words. 

Jaehyun-ah, he said and the demon stopped, I had always wanted your home to be mine. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Yuno didn’t know what Shotaro had meant when he had claimed that he wouldn’t mind dying here in the shack near the river at the outskirts of the village because it was his home. 

Why, he had asked, why do you talk of death so easily. 

_Because you see,_ Shotaro had answered, _you listen a lot more when you don’t hear about many things ._

He remembered that he used to be like that as well, pretending to not hear about the boys who jeered at his name and told him that he would never be one of them; not now, not in the future, not ever. But there was an exception _—_ because all forms of hardships would have that bright star that seeks a company, he told Shotaro. 

Like me, he explained, I found a salvation in another boy who dreamt of another place. 

Hearing that, Shotaro looked at him like he had just found the moon. 

_He must have been precious to you._

He was, Yuno said. He was my treasure. 

And indeed he was still his treasure even as he coughed blood after failing to evade his attack, even more beautiful in damage, his bloody stain around his lips glistening with the big, round eyes that he had longed for so long. 

Yuta, he asked, why didn’t you move. 

The words came out exactly like the way he had emerged from the thick pile of snow some few years ago, strangled and hanging on to the bare thread of life. 

I was asking you to kill me, he said, his body started falling apart, I wanted you to end me for good. 

_Yuno-kun,_ came a whispered confession. _I can’t do this._

  
  
  
  
  


_*_

  
  
  
  
  


Demons like Yuno had never existed for longer than a week and the fact that he had lived long enough just by sustenance from expired blood was nothing short of a miracle _—_ but it wasn’t the kind of thing that Shotaro could say to a demon with a death flag, even as a word of condolence. 

He headed straight into the woods right after hearing his scream, in case the slayer took him out and would later head towards him even though he was confident that Yuno didn’t see the number tattooed in his eye, a windfall that most likely came due to Yuno’s obliviousness to the world of the demons in general. He had even debated admitting it to him, that he had found a kin that would revitalise him so that he could get stronger and live on but Yuno carried with him a form of grudge that was balanced out by his benevolence, as though he had forgiven the world for turning him into a flesh-starved monster and was biding his time, waiting for his chosen assailant to claim him. 

From what Shotaro could see at the top of tree, Yuno seemed to have gotten his wish _—_ his treasured one with a slayer’s blade next to his neck, bleeding out so rapidly that all was left to do for them was to gaze upon each other and rekindle the promise that was denied to them. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


Yuta didn’t have enough willpower to tell Yuno what he had been withholding from everyone for so long _—_ the fact that he had learned to slay the way he did so that he could meet Yuno again one of these days and give him the most painless death ever. 

All he could do was to hold Yuno’s face and tell him that he had found his home a long time ago, on the night Yuno told him that he had two names but they were both him and they were one and the same and if he were up for it _—_

 _Kyoto was so beautiful_ , Yuno said, _I understood at once why you loved it_. He said it with the soft kind of strength that betrayed his frail body, because he took Yuta’s sword and grazed the tips to his vocal chords. 

_And that’s why you need to do this_ , he explained after conjuring the magic that he used to put in his voice whenever he wanted Yuta to believe in him, _because we have found home, haven’t we._

No, Yuta begged. Don’t make me do this, don’t _—_

 _You have to_ , Yuno said, pressing his throat deeper. 

But I can’t _—_

Before he could gather further thoughts, Yuno twisted his hand in Yuta’s guts deeper before pushing his own neck into the blade so that it completely decapitated him, with the last of his voices giving him just enough conviction to let his blood run out. 

_Besides, this is my home_ , the voice slowly faded with the evaporating body, _I don’t mind dying here._

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


You are just as beautiful as described, Shotaro thought as he knelt next to the dying slayer. Yuno had been long gone by now and he suspected that the slayer was on his last breath as well, except for some reason there was still a part of him that seemed to resist departure. 

You have to go now, he said as he took the slayer’s bloody arm, my friend is waiting for you. 

Then a gust of wind blew the sound of an impending commotion caused by the march of the euphoric villagers into his ear and the cloth he used to pack the buns he made for Yuno to his hand, so he had no other way to preserve his reclusive presence but to use the cloth to choke the remaining life out of the slayer and dashed away. 

From the top of the tree he was at, he saw the villagers weep for the life of the fallen slayer and the chief receiving an instruction from a crow that someone from the Kakushi brigade would be collecting the body, but from inside his mind, he saw Yuno’s handsome face, a lot more filled up in the afterlife receiving his dearest friend, thanking him for helping him up. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

  
  
  
  
  


In a distant universe where demons and slayers don’t exist, a boy from Osaka called Yuta comes to Seoul and meets a boy named Jaehyun, both of them holding a shared dream of superstardom. 

  
  
  
  
  


*

**Author's Note:**

> \- thank you so much for reading  
> \- when we shine bright, i'm alive, in the CT nal noraehae


End file.
